1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming device and a print file storage method thereof. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to an image forming device, a printing system, and a print file storage method thereof, which automatically modifies and stores a file name of a print file to a desired name provided by a user when the print file is transmitted from external apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, image forming devices print image data received from a host apparatus onto recording paper. Such image forming devices may include, for example, duplicators, printers, facsimile machines or multi function peripherals (MFPs) which combine the functions of the preceding apparatuses in one apparatus.
As scientific techniques such as semiconductor technologies, data compression technologies or the like have been developed, image forming devices have come to include a storage medium, such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or a flash memory, which have a predetermined storage capacity, due to a diversification of user needs.
Image forming devices including such storage media modify and store print files transmitted from various host apparatuses such as digital cameras, camcorders, personal digital assistants (PDAs) or the like, to print the stored print file onto recording paper, or to provide functions of an electronic album, such as arranging and ordering the transmitted print files.
In general, in order to print the print files transmitted from the above-described host apparatuses or to use functions of an electronic album, the image forming device stores the print files in the storage medium. However, when a received print file has the same name as those of existing stored print files, errors occur due to file name conflict, resulting in existing storage files being deleted or names of received files being simplified.
For example, host apparatuses such as digital cameras are manufactured so that self-captured images sequentially have a file name including an inherent name and a file extension, such as DSCSEC00001.JPG. After the images are transmitted to and stored in an image forming device, and a memory of a digital camera is reset, newly captured image files have the same name as those of the previously stored images. When the new image files are transmitted to the image forming device, print files having the same name as the names of formed print files are already prestored, and thus the above-described problems occur.
In order to solve these problems, a user can use a host apparatus such as a computer or an interface panel of the image forming device to modify file names of print files provided to the image forming device. However, this causes user inconvenience when print files are stored in the image forming device, and accordingly it is not easy to use the image forming device.
Additionally, prestored files are deleted due to overlapping file names, or names of files subsequently stored are simplified, so that it is difficult for a user to select a desired file during printing.